There are those who feel that reporting on issues like this brings pleasure, well, it truly doesn’t. Billy Graham was someone I had looked to as an example and someone I greatly admired in Christ. There’s little doubt that Billy Graham came on the scene as someone who preached the historic orthodox Christian faith with power.

But sadly, as you’re about to see, this would not continue as somewhere along the line Graham would apparently choose the role of “religious icon,” a musty old mantle passed to Rick Warren. Through the years of research here at Apprising Ministries troubling quotes and questionable associations he’d been making kept coming up.

when he appeared on the Christian scene in the late 1940’s he certainly did not, at that stage, compromise on the uniqueness of the Person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, in fact in 1948 [Billy Graham] made this statement…

[Graham said]: ‘the three greatest menaces faced by orthodox Christianity are Communism, Roman Catholicism, and Muhammadism,” which we know is Islam today. The sad thing is that having made that very commendable statement he then subsequently proceeded to retreat on all fronts.

Now I’ll give you a few examples of what Andrews is talking about. The following is from a 2005 Christianity Today piece called We Are Brothers:

In 1964, Richard Cardinal Cushing, the renowned [Roman Catholic] archbishop of Boston, shook up the Catholic Church by praising Billy Graham.

Encouraging Catholics to hear the evangelist, Cushing remarked that he would stop worrying about the Catholic Church’s future in America if they had half a dozen men like Graham. [Roman] Catholic and evangelical efforts toward fellowship have largely followed the Cushing-Graham model. (source).

In David Scott’s 2005 CT article The Pope We Never Knew we’re told Graham’s sinful ecumenicism goes back at least to his infamous 1957 New York City crusade:

After Graham’s first “communist” crusade in Hungary in 1977, he was invited to the predominately Catholic country of Poland by the tiny Protestant community there, which amounted to less than 1 percent of the population. Just as in his 1957 New York City crusade, Graham wanted to work with as many Catholics as possible. (source)

The fact is, innocuous blogger Tim Challies is right when he says:

Conservative Christians have long lamented Billy Graham’s ecumenicism. Since the early days of his ministry, Graham has worked hand-in-hand with Catholic Churches and has often expressed his belief that Catholics who are faithful to Roman Catholic teachings are saved. (source)

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:6-9)

There’s no basis for fellowship between the Christian and the Roman Catholic Church. Yet below you’ll see an example of Billy Graham doing just that; and worse, actually sending people to Roman Catholic Churches. The following comes from “His Eminence” Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles.

A tremendous opportunity for evangelizing and welcoming alienated and nonpracticing Catholics back into full sacramental life [i.e. the Roman Catholic Church] will be presented to us this November.

Mahoney continues:

These officials [from BGEA] have assured me that, in keeping with Dr. Graham’s belief and policy, there will be no proselytizing [of Roman Catholics], and that anyone identifyiing him or herself as a Catholic will be referred to us for reintegration into the life of the [Roman] Catholic church… Dr. Graham preaches the Gospel with great eloquence and with a true ecumenical spirit,… (source, emphasis mine)

(click to enlarge)

Notice Mahoney informs us that this sending people to apostate Roman Catholic Churches with their false gospel is Graham’s own personal “belief and policy.” In closing this, for now, you are about to see Billy Graham even tell you that someone can love Christ and know Christ and not even be conscious of it. Salvation by osmosis.

If this is true, why then should we bother preaching the Gospel at all? The following is from a transcript of an appearance by Billy Graham on Robert Schuller’s “Hour of Power,” program #1426 entitled Say “Yes” To Possibility Thinking, which was originally broadcast May 31, 1997:

Schuller: Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity?

Graham: Well, Christianity and being a true believer–you know, I think there’s the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they’re conscious of it or not, they’re members of the Body of Christ. And I don’t think that we’re going to see a great sweeping revival, that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time. I think James answered that, the Apostle James in the first council in Jerusalem, when he said that God’s purpose for this age is to call out a people for His name.

And that’s what God is doing today, He’s calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they’re going to be with us in heaven.

Schuller: What, what I hear you saying that it’s possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and soul and life, even if they’ve been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you’re saying?

Graham: Yes, it is, because I believe that. I’ve met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations, that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they’ve believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they’ve tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived.

Schuller: I’m so thrilled to hear you say this. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.

Graham: There is.

Dr. John MacArthur then adds the following salient comments concerning that compromised conversion between Graham and Schuller quoted above:

This has certainly leaped from Aristotle to the [Roman] Catholic Church into evangelical Protestantism. Now we have a kind of Protestant viewpoint that says Muslims and Hindus and whoever are going to be in the Body of Christ, in the Kingdom, in Heaven, with salvation whether they ever get a Bible or whether they ever hear the Gospel or whether they ever know about Jesus Christ. The Billy Graham organization affirmed that this position is the same as the one articulated in an article in Decision magazine which Billy wrote in 1960, so this is not something new.

So you see, the evidence has always been right there; Billy Graham truly has been compromised for many years. Below is the segment in question with Graham and his friend Robert Schuller. Watch it for yourself: